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DOCUMENT RESUME PS 020 915 ED 352 140 Lang, Cynthia AUTHOR Head Start: New Challenges, New Chances. TITLE Education Development Center, Inc., Newton, Mass. INSTITUTION 92 PUB DATE 35p. NOTE Descriptive (141) Reports PUB TYPE MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage. EDRS PRICE *At Risk Persons; Disadvantaged Youth; Drug Abuse; DESCRIPTORS *Early Intervention; Federal Programs; *High Risk Students; Interpersonal Competence; Majority Attitudes; Parent Participation; Poverty; Preschool Children; Preschool Education; *Program Development; Public Policy; *School Readiness; Social Attitudes Integrated Services; *Project Head Start IDENTIFIERS ABSTRACT This booklet presents a short history of the Head Start program and discusses some of the challenges that the program helped will face in the 1990s. Project Head Start, begun in 1965, has 12.5 million children become better prepared to start school, and has family education program grown to be the largest early childhood and in the country. From the outset, the program included four components that concerned education, health, social services, and parent involvement. Head Start faces new challenges in dealing with the increasing levels of poverty, drug and alcohol abuse, violence, and the other social ills faced by children today. More than ever, (1) create a safe, nurturing environment for young program needs to: (3) assist and involve (2) foster social competence: children; (4) improve coordination among social agencies and services; parents; and (5) attract and prepare qualified staff. In oraer that programs whole such as Head Start can work more effectively, the nation as a must be more willing to commit the time and resources necessary to strengthen and broaden the Head Start program, and mainstream American society needs to examine its own attitudes and biases concerning poverty and other social problems. Contains 35 references. (MDM) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * from the original document. *********************************************************************** New Challenges, New Chances U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it 0 Minor changes have been made to improve raOrOduCtion duality Points &view or opinions statedin thisdocu men) do nol necessarily represent official OERI rOSMOn or policy "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)" REST COPY IIVAIAillE Head Start began as an eight-week summer program in 1965. in church basements and the unused rooms of public schools, in urban settings and rural, it grew into a year-round, comprehensive, multigenerational development program for children and families, which now serves 6C0,000 economically disadvantag2d preschool youngsters a year. The decade of the 1990s poses new challenges to the Head Start program and offers new chances for even greater impact in the Nears ahead. Head Start today is on the threshold of making importar decisions about policy and program planning. What better time than now to stop and reflect on where we've been and what lies ahead? For the past sixteen years EDC has worked with local Head Start programs and state and regional Head Start associations. The New England Resource Center at EDC, one of twelve in a national network, provides Head Start children, programs with a wide rangc of services to support the education of parents and other caregivers, and staff; to improve social services; and to strengthen both parent involvement and program management. The New England Resource Access Project (RAP), one of eleven in the national RAP network, provides services to meet the needs of Head Start children with disabilities and their families. The activities of these projects include on-site training and technical assistance, training conferences, and dissemination of print and audiovisual resources. Through our work in these and other projects, EDC staff members have contributed to the success of Head Start programs throughout New England and the nation and have gained new insights into many aspects of early childhood education. This monograph is intended to share what EDC has learned with a wider audience and to promote a new understanding of the mission, the design, and the promise of Head Start. Janet Whitla President cE,1ucahun Develnimulit renif.r. Inc (El )('). 1992, Head Start: New Challenges, New Chances Education Development Center, Inc. /-1 The story we have to tell here is the story of our nation's children in poverty: they are more at risk, in many ways, than ever before. We tell it through the lens of Head Start, one of the few enduring and successful social programs to come out of the 1960s. Since 1965, Head Start has served 12.5 million children and their families. Along the way it has become the largest early childhood and family education program in the country, the leading health referral system for children from families with low incomes, and the most. extensive system for integrating young children with disabilities. Head Start has clearly demon- strated the capacity to change, for the better, the health of young children and their educational readiness for school. An analysis of 210 different follow-up studies of Head Start participants concluded that "Head Start graduates score higher on cognitive tests and are less likely than their non-Head Start peers to be held back in grade (a well-known early indicator of school failure) or placed in special education classes."1 As a result of tailored, intensive, preschool intervention, children from families with low incomes can go into the first grade and enjoy success in the classroom. These successes, moreover, have been documented for cohorts of children and are not breakthrough of a lucky few. Over the years, as well, merely Head Start, has helped to promote the idea that schools also need to change, in order to meet the needs of changing popula- tions of children. Just as Head Start was celebrating a quarter century of successful achievements, however, it became evident that. the 1990s would confront Head Start with a new and demand- ing set. of challenges. The numbers of children eligible for Head Start services continue to grow and the program has embarked on an era of expansion. In addition, the characteristics and needs of Head Start children appear to be changing. Concerned teachers report seeing children who are more aggressive, impulsive, disorganized and/or withdrawn; who are less able to manage language; and who are less able to remember and use on Monday what they had learned on Friday. We can applaud all that Head Start has accomplished. At the same time, given these new challenges, supporters of Head Start must, ask some hard questions about policy and about practice. If Head Start expands significantly, can it continue to deliver the program with the same success? In fact, if children's needs really are changing, will the program continue to work in the 1990s? The Ongoing Problem: The Climate of Poverty Sobering statistics suggest that the war on poverty is not going well and that our youngest citizens make up the greatest number of casualties. More children are living in poverty than ever. Between 1968 and 1987, even though the number of all children under age six remained relatively stable, the number of percent.2 Young poor children under age six increased by 35 families, families with unemployed parents, and families with poorly educated heads-of-household all lost ground. A critical factor was employment: as the economy expanded, families without workers were not carried along.3 Contrary to what many Americans believe, the greatest numbers of families with low incomes (54 percent) live in rural areas or the suburbs, not in the inner cities.4 Nevertheless, and the impact of poverty in urban neighborhoods is harsh . . . much harsher than it used to be. Today, several interrelated factors dramatically affect the health and well-being of children in these neighborhoods: violence, drug trafficking, and the use of alcohol and other drugs. Inner cities tend to have much higher rates of interpersonal violence than do rural and subur- ban communities; from an early age, children in at-risk neighborhoods witness violence and crime close to home.5 They also witness violence or are victims of violence at home. Researchers report that children in violence-prone neighborhoods have begun to display the familiar symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder including depression, violent outbursts, difficulty con- centrating, and reduced involvement in the outside world.6,7.8 The effects of violence on children's development include impaired cognition, memory and learning disorders, and poor school performance.9 "Many of the Head Start children are like children under siege and are insecure in fundamental ways," says Joanne P. Brady, associate director of EDC's Center for Family, School, and Community. "During the war in the Persian Gulf, people often asked, 'What shall we tell the children? How can we reas- sure the children that they will be safe?' It illustrated a major problem for Head Start: many of the children in this country are already living in a war zone and the rest of the United States cannot understand what. that is like for them." The effects of violence on children's development include impaired cognition, memory and learning disorders, and poor school performance. Drug trafficking contributes to the climate of violence.16,11 The use of alcohol and other drugs affects caregiving behavior in families. Bet weep 1984 and 1989, for example, there was a :3,000-percent increase in the number of drug-related abuse/neglect petitions in the I I.S. juvenile court s.12 In addition to disrupting the social climate and family dynamics, the question arises of how much, and in what ways, prenatal exposure to alcohol and other drugs has damaging, long-term effects on the development of children. Certainly. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) can lead to mental retardation and other life-long and permanent prob- ierns.13,14,15 Prenatal exposure to alcohol far exceeds that of exposure to illicit drugs.16 Yet in recent years media coverage has focused not on alcohol, but on the alarming increase of babies born to mothers who use illicit drugs, especially cocaine: and the press has tended to convey a picture of drug-exposed infants and children as "hopeless" members of a "lost generation." In 1992: A New Understanding It is understandable that many teachers and other members of the public could easily believe that long-term damage from illicit drugs must be the cause of the learning and behavior problems observed in Head Start classrooms. Recently, however, a more accurate picture of the problem has begun to emerge. There is no typical developmental profile of a child who has been prenatally exposed to drugs. As Richard Barth writes, "Children exposed to drugs in utero do not represent a class of childrenthey may be as varied as children who are not exposed."17 In January 1C_'92 an article ei,,itled "The Problem of Prenatal Cocaine Exposure: A Rush to Judgment" appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The authors stated, "Our review of the current literature on the subject indicates that available evidence from the newborn period is far too slim and fragmented to allow any clear predic- tions about the effects of intrauterine exposure to cocaine on '.he course and outcome of child growth and development." Commenting on the focus on cocaine in the lay press, they said, "A very large group of children is in danger of being writ- ten off. Moreover a social sentiment has arisen that ti Le loss of these children is entirely attributable to the prenatal effects of cocaine."18 This new understanding of the situation has significant implications for the way Head Start teachers view children in their classrooms. We can no longer attribute many of the trou- bling behaviors encountered to prenatal exposure to illicit drugs. At the same time, it is accurate to say that for many children, in many communities, development after they are born is affected by drugs. The drug culture touches their early lives even if it has not harmed their bodies and minds in utero. Parents who struggle with drug addiction often experience low motivation, personal disorganization, and a sense of futility. Drug use often fosters neglect and physical and sexual abuse in the family. Drug trafficking contributes to a threatening environment and high incidence of actual violence in the neighborhood. Parents in prison, mothers abusing drugs, neglect, and multiple foster placements are among the many environmental factors that at-risk children encounter. Practitioners who direct programs targeting drug-exposed children are keenly aware of the environment and its influence on children's development. Children exposed to drugs in uteri) do not they may be as represent a class of children varied as children who are not exposed. Today, we know much more than we did twenty-five years ago about the deprivation, despair, humiliation, and violence that children experience growing up in poverty. Considerable research has highlighted a miscalculation and an injustice in an assumption of the original Head Start approach: the view of the child as the locus of "educational deficits" and the target for change. In asking the child to change, we failed to see how much, and in what ways, the customs and culture of the larger society contribute to the problems children face. Existing evidence strongly suggests that children born into poverty, including children prenatally exposed to illicit drugs, can "catch up" substantially, depending on the environment and on the kind and consistency of caregiving they receive. But focusing all of our efforts on the child will not accomplish the changes. As a nation it is not enough to ask how we call best support Head Start. We need to ask what more we can do to address the root causes that make Head Start as a program necessary. Given Head Start's essential role in our current environment, however, it is important to understand its key elements in order to strengthen its effectiveness as one essential component of our national social policy and programs. The Head Start Model: An Overview From the outset Head Start, intended to be a comprehensive program, included four components: education, health, social services, and parent involvement. Education Component Head Start provides early childhood services for children ages three to five. Even though programs are free to devise their own curricula, their educational services must meet a set of specific standards to provide individualized educational experiences for each child, activities that reflect the rich cultural diversity of Head Start families, and to address all areas of development. To provide these services, the teaching team in the classroom includes a teacher, a teacher assistant, and parent volunteers. At the same time, Head Start seeks to educate parents and other family members to strengthen their roles as caregivers and primary educators of the children, and as adults who want to participate in the workplace and the community. Head Start also provides educational and professional development opportunities for staff. Health Component Health services provided by Head Start. (which may be the only health services a Head Start child receives) are nutritional health, mental health, dental health, and medical screening and follow-up services. A major emphasis is on helping low-income parents develop ongoing relationships with health providers and gain more control over their family's health. Head Start uses a variety of educational and hands-on strategies to help families become more knowledgeable consumers of health and related services. Social Services Component Head Start helps families gain access to important community services such as counseling, financial assistance, and job training and career education. Family workers are available to each Head Start family to support them through crises, help them gain a better understanding of child development, and create opportunities for personal growth. Parent Involvement Component Head Start parents participate in decisionmaking about the nature and operations of the program, and in various roles as paid staff, volunteers, and observers. They participate in parent-education programs, policy councils, and committees; in activities for parents that they have helped to develop; and in developing in collaboration with staff activities to use with children at home. Parents are equal partners in the educational process that influences their children's growth and development.